December 23, 2016

Special Report: The Thing (1982)

Initially lambasted by critics, John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) was a brilliant adaptation of John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There?. The film tells the story of a dozen men in Antarctica who are infiltrated by an alien shapeshifter.

One 'thing' that didn't come up in the discussion; in 2010, author Peter Watts wrote the short story, "The Things", which recounts the events in the Carpenter film from the one perspective not at all covered - the title characters'.Very interesting, the story caused some controversy in some circles.

Why special report? It's an awesome full fledged episode just like most of PB's "regular" episodes. Great job on getting all those interviews as well. And yeah, while the producer's interview is not 100 percent intelligible, most of it still is. In fact, I'd say it's way more intelligible than for example the Bad Timing Nick Rogue interview.

The Hateful Eight video has a point. I too was reminded of The Thing when they got to the cottage. And there's the Morricone connection as well. Kurt talks about it a bit as well:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kurt-russell-the-thing-theory_us_56883db0e4b014efe0daaaff

Here's a couple more fun The Thing videos:

The Thing Cast Watches the Prequelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYjDVCwKr6A:)

Vintage VHS Promo/Making of Featurette from 1982 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk1mLv8_DiAMy God how young they all are. Kurt still looks like a kid in a grown man's suit.

The Thing deleted scenes + alternate ending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xu2cFljkPwThe infamous bwana line is in this. The other scene where Blair explains the alien nature of The Thing's cell structure could've been kept in. I'm not sure why they claim that the dog in the snow scene is an alternate ending... Because it's not.

The 2013 blog of one of the producers is still up and he explains in some detail there the truth behind the alternate ending(s) story and how 3 percent of some random preview audience almost gave us the ending without Childs:http://theoriginalfan.blogspot.rs/2011/10/ending-you-almost-saw.htmlHe also explains what the crew thought on the whole "is Childs the Thing" issue.

Since Mike and his co-hosts talk about the same alternate ending with MacReady and the test that the guy mentions here, does anyone know where that footage can actually be seen? The producer thought it was lost since it was never meant to be used.

By the way, did you mention Harbinger Down or did I miss that part of the episode somehow?

Oh, end happy New Year Mike and PB. May your episodes be great as this one and your Patron wallets as full as The Thing is with paranoia.